History

Cape Town first received local self-government in 1839, with the promulgation of a municipal ordinance by the government of the Cape Colony.[7] When it was created, the Cape Town municipality governed only the central part of the city known as the City Bowl, and as the city expanded, new suburbs became new municipalities, until by 1902 there were 10 separate municipalities in the Cape Peninsula.[8] During the 20th century, many of the suburban municipalities became unsustainable and merged into the Cape Town municipality or combined with other suburbs; but at the end of apartheid in 1994 the metropolitan area was still divided up into several[vague] separate municipalities.

Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or eGoli, is the largest city in South Africa. Johannesburg is the provincialcapital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa. The city is one of the 40 largest metropolitan areas in the world, and is also the world's largest city not situated on a river, lake, or coastline. While Johannesburg is not officially one of South Africa's three capital cities, it does house the Constitutional Court – South Africa's highest court. The city is the source of a large-scale gold and diamondtrade, due to its location on the mineral-rich Witwatersrand range of hills.Johannesburg includes Soweto, which was a separate city from the late 1970s until the 1990s. Originally an acronym for "South Western Townships", Soweto originated as a collection of settlements on the outskirts of Johannesburg populated mostly by native African workers in the gold mining industry. Eventually incorporated into Johannesburg, the apartheid regime (in power 1948–1994) separated Soweto from the rest of Johannesburg to make it a completely Black area.

The City of Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality is a metropolitan municipality that manages the local governance of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is divided into several branches and departments in order to expedite services for the city. Johannesburg is a divided city: the poor mostly live in the southern suburbs or on the peripheries of the far north, and the middle class live largely in the suburbs of the central and north. Around 20% of the city lives in abject poverty in informal settlements that lack proper roads, electricity, or any other kind of direct municipal service. Another 40% live in inadequate housing with insufficient municipal housing.

History

During the apartheid era, Johannesburg was divided into 11 local authorities, seven of which were white and four black or coloured. The white authorities were 90% self-sufficient from property tax and other local taxes, and spent Rand 600 (USD $93) per person, while the black authorities were only ten percent self-sufficient, spending Rand 100 (USD $15) per person.

The first post-apartheid City Council was created in 1995. The council adopted the slogan "One City, One Taxpayer" in order to highlight its primary goal of addressing inequal tax revenue distribution. To this end, revenue from wealthy, traditionally white areas would help pay for services needed in poorer, black areas. The City Council was divided into four regions, each with a substantially autonomous local regional authority that was to be overseen by a central metropolitan council. Furthermore, the municipal boundaries were expanded to include wealthy satellite towns like Sandton and Randburg, poorer neighbouring townships such as Soweto and Alexandra, and informal settlements like Orange Farm. The four councils or Metropolitan Local Councils(MLCs) were the Northern MLCl, Southern MLC, Eastern MLC and Western MLC (sometimes referred to as Metropolitan Substructures), under a central metropolitan council.[7] This arrangement ended in 2000.[8]

In 1999, Johannesburg appointed a city manager in order to reshape the city's ailing financial situation. The manager, together with the Municipal Council, drew up a blueprint called "Igoli 2002". This was a three-year plan that called upon the government to sell non-core assets, restructure certain utilities, and required that all others become self-sufficient. The plan took the city from near insolvency to an operating surplus of Rand 153 million (USD 23.6 million). The plan was fiercely contested by trade unions, who argued that it would result in job losses and tariff increases. The core of Igoli 2002 was to restructure Metro Gas, Rand Airport, and some sports stadiums as stand-alone corporate entitites. The city bus service, the Johannesburg Zoo, the Civic Theatre, the Fresh Produce Market, and the city's property holdings were turned into corporations with the city as the single shareholder. Each was run as a business, with management hired on performance contracts.